DM Monitoring
SEOUL: South Korea posted current account surplus for four straight months to August as people refrained from traveling abroad amid the fear of the COVID-19 outbreak, the recent data of central bank data showed.
Current account surplus reached 6.57 billion U.S. dollars in August, up 1.71 billion dollars, or 35.1 percent, from a year earlier, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).
The current account balance, the broadest measure of cross-border trade, stayed in the black for four months since May.
Services account balance, which measures the flow of travel, transport costs and royalties, recorded a deficit of 800 million dollars in August, down from a deficit of 1.56 billion dollars tallied a year earlier.
Travel account deficit declined to 470 million dollars in August from 990 million dollars a year earlier.
People avoided going on an overseas trip amid the lingering worry about the COVID-19 pandemic across the world. The transport account surplus increased to 390 million dollars in August from 30 million dollars a year earlier owing to a sharp fall in the payment of transport costs amid the global trade slowdown. Trade surplus for goods amounted to 7.02 billion dollars in August, up 2.39 billion dollars from a year ago.
Export for goods shrank 10.3 percent over the year to 40.67 billion dollars in August, while import diminished 17.3 percent to 33.65 billion dollars. Both export and import continued to skid for the sixth straight month through last month.
Primary income account, which includes monthly salary and investment income, registered a surplus of 630 million dollars in August, down from a surplus of 2.02 billion dollars a year earlier. The dividend income account posted a deficit of 90 million dollars in the month, while the interest income account logged a surplus of 730 million dollars.
Financial account, which gauges cross-border capital flow without transactions in goods and services, recorded a net outflow of 4.84 billion dollars in August, up from an outflow of 4.17 billion dollars a year earlier.
Oversea direct investment by local residents expanded 2.8 billion dollars in August, while foreign direct investment in South Korea reduced 990 million dollars.
